Just Add Al
by Anne Booty

You’ve blunted Al’s eye liner and she’s gonna kill you. 

Still, you mustn’t forget your tennis racket otherwise your death will have been futile. At assembly that morning you pick at the black tape on the handle, sticky glue finger nails like molasses. Eventually, the Head calls your name and you move to the front, nodding to the P.E. teacher to press play. The opening is epic played this loud, dispatching magpies from nests, awakening a mass of two hundred children. When the organ drops out, you get your axe into position and begin to strum. You may only be eleven and this may only be lip syncing to Faith dressed as a bearded kangaroo, but a girl has to start somewhere.